King Country Chronicle Wednesday, Nov. 30, 1910. THE BRITISH ELECTIONS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 316, 30 November 1910, Page 4

King Country Chronicle Wednesday, Nov. 30, 1910. THE BRITISH ELECTIONS.

On Saturday next the second British General Election this present year will begin in the Old Country, and wide and momentous issues hang in the balance until we know which way public opinion is tending. The present Government has successfully carried through one of the most democratic Budgets that have ever been presented in the British House of Commons, and the Veto Conference having failed to win concessions from the representatives of the Lord?, the gauntlet of battle has been thrown down, and it is left to the electors to decide whether they do, or do not, wish to see a shorn and modified second Chamber. But the issue is likely to be mixed, if the Tariff Reformers, the Labour Party, the Nationalists, the Free-traders and the Imperialists do as they have always done before— make their own special point of view the only one they are concerned about, and there will not be that clear and decisive call which would settle, once and for all, the most vexed question Britons, of all shades of opinion, have to deal with. Though, whether the present Government are returned once more in a majority or not, the House of Lords cannot again take up the old impossible attitude of blocking progressive legislation. It has of its own voilition consented to internal reforms, and though the extreme parties may not recognise this new : born zeal for a more equitable state |of things as genuine, yet it cannot be gainsaid, it exists! A suggestion I made by Lord Landsdowne, and sup- ; ported by Mr John Burns, that the ■ referendum would decisively test the i question of the House of Lords seems to us a logical way out of the I difficulty, but the Prime Minister ! opposes it and it is not likely to be | adopted. Apparently pure democracy ! is beyond some present members of | the British Cabinet. The Suffra- ! gettes, too, present another curious ! spectacle. There is scarcely a New j Zealander who is not heartily in sympathy with woman's surffage on broad and democratic lines. We wish the suffragettes at Home had all the privileges our women have here. But they are not going about it in a way Lo win the sympathies of moderate men and women. To insult and inflict bodily harm on Cabinet Ministers may be their notion of drawing attention to their wrongs, but most of us are inclined to suggest that a revival of the ancient ducking stool might not be an inappropriate punishment for such mal-practices. Their Bill is not democratic. If it included all women it might do. But it does not, and consequently it gets no sympathy from real reformers. The coming general election is thus interesting from a good many points of view, and many minds will be thinking, for the next three weeks, of the issues in the Old Land, wondering what will be the ultimate outcome of ail the upset and turmoil.